Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) is organized in Hong Kong, 9-13 June in 2018.

Its topic is Diversity and Design.

Its topic is Diversity and Design.

DIS 2018 invites papers about a burning issue shaping design today: diversity. Diversity is reflected in the choice of Hong Kong as the site of the DIS 2018 conference. Hong Kong’s 7.5 million people come from different ethnic, social and cultural backgrounds to form a multiplicity of communities, beliefs, and practices. Hong Kong is defined through its relation to geographical neighbors like Shenzhen and Macau. The former is known as a massive manufacturing and technology hub; the latter as Asia’s gambling capital. Yet, just like Hong Kong, both are more than these stereotypes: their nature, business, food, entertainment, and popular culture are diverse and different from each other.

Interactive systems can be designed to take into account diversities, but also the global landscape, when faced with diversity, designers face a classic philosophical question about particulars and universals: should design make particular commitments to diversity or should it go after universals in technology and experience?

Today, emerging technologies are redefining this question. Many newly emerging interactive artifacts and systems can be personalized. Individuals can create their own artifacts with globally available platforms. For designers, these platforms pose new possibilities, but also challenges in terms of concepts, methods, processes, and technologies.

DIS 2018 invites submissions that address the following questions around Diversity and Design: Are our current models of user experience adequate in addressing diversity? What kinds of methods and processes are needed for designing for diversity? How can applications and technologies be designed to address diversity and even add to it in this era of giant global corporations? What are the ethical limits designers have to face when designing for diversity?

DIS 2018 invites several types of submissions, including papers, pictorials, demos, provocations and workshops. As before, the conference focuses explicitly on the design aspects of interactive systems, products, services, and spaces – but the limit is imagination.

DIS is now annual!

The ACM SIGCHI Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) is the premier international arena where designers and computer scientists meet to debate and shape the future of interactive systems design and practice. DIS is owned by the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI). In the past, DIS has been held in Ann Arbor (1995), Amsterdam (1997), New York (2000), London (2002), Boston (2004), State College (2006), Cape Town (2008), Aarhus (2010), Newcastle (2012), Vancouver (2014), Brisbane (2016), and Edinburgh (2017). Biannual until 2016, DIS is now annual!

Hosts

The School of Design of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University hosts DIS 2018. It comes to Asia for the first time. It also comes to a design school for the first time.